erinja:me, what puts me off - going to an Esperanto event and finding nothing but eternaj komencantoj.

Well I'm really giving it a go, honest. I've taken time out of my heavy schedule to learn a little every day for the last 150 days.

Vestitor:

oreso:Need more X? Why? People are free to be interested in what they like, and it might be that learning languages is more interesting, on average, to older people and to guys than it is to younger people and to girls...

So, although I can't say I mind about absolute numbers, as long as there's no actual discrimination against any particular group, it's fine by me.

That's the thing though. Think of sciences like Physics. Is it that fewer women are interested in physics, or that the whole area is quite a male place? How long has it taken for women's football to be properly accepted? I don't think you can measure interest by participation because there may be (usually are) obstacles for certain people and groups.

I don't know that there is a fair comparison there. In the past throughout the world there have been times when women were not allowed to learn subjects such as physics and rules against women from playing football. There probably were those who were interested but couldn't due to other reasons.

As far as I know, there's never been a bar against women speaking Esperanto.

erinja:Whatever the reasons in any given country, I think a skewed demographic is hard to reverse without conscious work. Even a very welcoming group of all white men, by their very existence, might present subtle signals to a woman or a non-white person that "this hobby isn't popular with people like me, maybe it's not for me after all". Same thing if a white man walks into an Esperanto meeting and it's all black women. Even if they are super welcoming, he might feel weird about it and he might be disinclined to return.

Yeah, I can imagine that. But I dunno, I cannot imagine what 'conscious work' would look like without being condescending and sexist/racist/etc itself. I mean, for me at least, while I wouldn't mind walking into a completely, say, old asian woman dominated environment, I would be instantly made uncomfortable if they all seemed to be making an extra conscious effort to be nice and welcoming to me, simply because I was different age/race/gender than them. It would probably be super creepy.

I don't think there's much we can do if someone assumes that because of the current demographics, they judge that an activity isn't for them. It might be sexism/racism/etc on their part, but I don't think we could say.

Demographics do drift and change anyway of course.

oreso:I don't think there's much we can do if someone assumes that because of the current demographics, they judge that an activity isn't for them. It might be sexism/racism/etc on their part, but I don't think we could say.

You cannot understand, even slightly, why someone might go into an event, see that no one there looks like them and everyone is doing an activity with what looks like proficiency, that this person might conclude that this activity is not really suited to them or that they might have trouble finding friends in this group?

I think a diverse mix of people is a good thing and like it or not, I think people are put off by going to a place and seeing no one who looks like them. It reinforces unconscious ideas like "Maybe people like me don't do this activity and maybe it will be hard for me to find my place in this group".

Not everyone is a huge go-getter who is ready to be the first and possibly only person like them in a group.

erinja:You cannot understand, even slightly, ...

Yep, I certainly can understand and do agree with you that it's a thing. Sorry I wasn't clear. My post was about what can (or can't?) be practically done in response to this, if and where it does crop up.